A Painting A Day

I haven't had time to paint, and our local art league has a show this month, so the day before the deadline, I rush to my easel and paint this picture from a lovely photograph I have of our children.

My son is about to graduate from high school and then move far, far away for College and my stepdaughter is getting married this fall, so both of them have these incredible life events going on, and they are top of mind, so it was only natural to paint them.

Because I was painting under a deadline, I used a new product called Liquin Impasto. I needed the paint to dry (like the next day) and I wanted to work in oils so I am happy to say it worked beautifully. The painting stayed wet long enough to mix the paint on the canvas, and it was completely dry within a few hours. It also comes in a tube which is really nice - honestly I don't think I used Liquin much before because it was so darn hard to get it out of the bottle.

So this deadline was a good thing - I found a new product that I really like. Because I always seem to paint under pressure, I think I'll be using it a lot!

 Happy to get back in the studio tonight. Painted this at Anne's tonight and am planning on painting again on Friday. It's been too long!

Not sure if I'm finished with this yet, but I am having fun with this one. I combined my love of abstract with my love of portrait and figurative work - combined with my current obsession for red and just a little Warhol thrown in for fun - with the repeating figures.

I was actually trying to find a crowd pic but couldn't find one so I thought why don't I just make multiple copies of this model? I thought the crisscrossing legs would be cool... not sure it turned out that way though.

 It's surprisingly hard to paint exact copies. You can see there are a lot of differences between them. It was easier to get the two models side by side but the one off to the left is way off. I plan to do this kind of painting again and see how close I can come to making exact replicas. I don't ever trace things but I might reconsider that - paint the first one and then duplicate it with tracing paper. Tracing has always seemed like cheating to me - although a lot of artists I really respect do some tracing. I might consider it only if I'm tracing the first model I paint. That way I'm tracing my own work.

This is in acrylic and I'm actually really starting to like working with it. It dries so frigging fast! I mean like almost after I put the paint on the canvas. And then it's forgiving... I can paint over things as often as I'd like and can completely cover black with just one or two coats. With oil I can push the paint around but I can't cover mistakes like that unless I wait for it to dry. So I'm liking that aspect.

I also love making drips. Sorry that might sound childish but hey ... the drips bring out the inner kid in me.

There are a lot of things unfinished in this painting, but I think I like it that way. At least I like it today... tomorrow ... who knows?

See if you can figure out why I called it Birdies. Haha

It's extremely liberating to just paint what I want to paint! I was out of town for three weeks, and now I need to get some things painted for The Fountain Gallery.

I've had this picture saved for a while now - and painted it today. I have a terrible summer cold and so didn't feel like doing much - so painting was relaxing.

My son didn't know who this was! I must have done a terrible job getting his likeness! In case you also don't know, it's supposed to be Jack White. I went a little crazy with his hair - the colors were just talking to me. Maybe I inhaled a bit too much paint thinner but I am really loving his hair! Haha

I was needing some serious redemption after my latest "attempts" at painting, so tonight I thought I would try to paint something nice at our life painting group. My friend's daughter was the model, so I guess I just stacked up too much pressure to perform on myself!

 The group was packed so I ended up in the corner, so didn't have a good angle. I think I captured her likeness somewhat, but I also think I was a bit tired of painting after painting the two roses earlier. So I'm hoping she will model for the group again, because I would like another shot at painting that beautiful red hair!

Our live painting group has nudes occasionally. This was my painting from last night. Especially where I live, people don't seem to have very much of an open mind about nudes - they think they are obscene. It seems like every art exhibit I've applied to be in, I'm told "no nudes."

I think the human body is a work of art, and is beautiful - no matter the shape, or age, or size. I also have observed that every true art gallery has nude statues and paintings. But here in Memphis, even the gallery owners admit they have to consign the nudes to a back room. So it appears that people in the Renaissance were much more open minded than we are today! It's a shame, and I guess I will continue to be a "rebel."

So happy to be juried into the Memphis Germantown Art League's 2015 Spring Exhibit!! This is my very first juried exhibit! These paintings will be on display at the Germantown Center for the Performing Arts through May 27th. There is a reception next Saturday, May 9th from 4pm - 6pm

Ok so a winery here is having a label contest, and the name of the winery is "Delta Blues." A friend of mine asked me to enter the contest today, so I did this real quick. Seriously quick - like less than an hour and it probably shows! Haha. But there is something about the rough painting of this man that I really like. I like things not being so controlled and perfect.

Did this last night in painting from life class. Again, I didn't measure. I don't know why I refuse to do that. I was also too lazy to refresh my paints so they were kind of sticky. I ended up making the head a little larger than life size, so was unhappy with that. But I was happy with achieving a semi semblance of curly hair - and thought I got the likeness pretty close. ;)

  A good friend of mine was the model for our painting from life group last night. Again, I did not measure well enough. I did not get her nose in the right position! On the flip side, I thought I got her eyes right and was semi-happy with the skin tones.

Ann Enoch (who hosts our life painting group in her studio) gave me the absolute coolest thing tonight! A red acetate frame! She was sitting next to me, and I commented on how nice and glassy she made the models eyes and Anne looked at my painting and she immediately recognized the problem - my highlights weren't bright enough! She gave me the red acetate frame to look through to help judge my values. I was blown away by how much it helped. Before using it, my painting looked so flat - there was no life in it. Using the acetate I saw that I wasn't making my highlights light enough!
Love this group! I learn so much from them!
As for the painting - I really liked it while I was there but I think subconsciously I knew I needed to work on her mouth more. In particular the right side that is in shadow is too bright red - I should have toned it down with some green or made it more purple. Also her mouth was not as crooked as I made it in the painting. To be honest with myself, I was thinking that the crook in her mouth gave her character - when in actuality her mouth was much straighter. I need to quit adding things that aren't there and stick to painting what really IS there. But on the other hand ... hmmm... there IS no other hand!

I experimented with this, and really liked how it turned out. I have been reading Kintsler's "Painting Portraits" and his backgrounds are turpentine washes or vignettes - so I had to restrain myself but I tried to stay abstract on everything but the face. Even on the hands, I just used a few brush strokes to suggest them - rather than paint every detail (like I usually do).

I tried to make the focal point the face, but I think that making the doll lighter than the rest of the painting shifted the focus somewhat from the face. I am still pondering that.

 This was a rather large work for me - a 24" x 30". I started on it yesterday, and finished it today. I was working from a very tiny photo. I ran out and got a frame for it because the artist group I am in will be exhibiting at Folks Folly - a really nice restaurant here in Memphis starting tomorrow, so I wanted to put this in the exhibit. :)

Did this today - and was really happy with how it turned out. I was working from a black and white photo so made up the colors. Also in the photo her dress had a pattern and it I started to do it, but it was just too busy and competed with the scarf, so I tried to make the dress suede. This is a pretty large work (for me) - it's 18" x 24" on canvas.

I recently bought a book called "Portraits from Life in 29 Steps" by John Howard Sanden. I opened it, and honestly couldn't put the book down until I had read the entire thing. That is the sign of a great book! So armed with my new knowledge, I went to live painting group tonight and tried to put what I had learned to practice. I think this is my best live painting portrait yet - and while I still have soooo much farther to go, I was pleased with my progress.

  We had a new model at live painting class tonight. She has very beautiful features and lovely skin tones. I don't think I have the right side of her face dark enough. I think I'm still a little scared of going all out and actually painting what I see. Hopefully I will gain the courage to do it next time!

  I've never done a baby painting before, but this one reminded me so much of one of my baby sisters (when they were babies of course - now they're old women!) that I just had to give it a shot. This is just a small study - a 6" x 8". I did a lot of things different on this. I put some different colors in my palette like a pre mixed violet, permanent rose, and raw umber. The other thing I did was actually mix the colors before I started painting. That saved a ton of time - whipped this out in just under an hour, and I thought it made the skin tones turn out better because I wasn't mixing them on the fly.

I was on a painting frenzy yesterday! Two paintings in one day! Love it! So first let me preface this by saying, this is not a moviestar! Haha! When I was painting it I was trying to reveal the emotion in her eyes.

I had such good response from the last Keanu, that I decided to paint him again. I painted this from a photo I found on creative commons that had a right to modify license.
I painted this on a really big canvas (for me) - it's a 24" x 36" canvas. So to keep things semi in scale I started off by making a grid with charcoal on the canvas and then drew the outline of him on the grid with charcoal. Then I fixed that, and painted over it.
I think the grid helped me tremendously to keep things in scale - which is hard when you go larger. The only problem is my paint is not really covering the old grid lines! I've tried putting the paint on thick, but since I am painting a lighter color than the dark charcoal grid, it's still showing through. Oh well, I guess lesson learned - next time I will do the outline and erase the grid before starting to paint!
Also the angle of his face was difficult for me. He is cocking his eyebrow, with his face twisted and angled - a real challenge! I may go back and do a little more detail. I have not spent very much time on this so it could use more polishing. I am thinking I might enter this in a juried competition, but am running out of time!

Started on this last night, and didn't have enough time to finish - so I worked on it a little more tonight and finished. Posted it on instagram and was really happy because @keanureevesoficial reposted it to their 10,000 followers! Yay! Got some major exposure!

I have never painted a horse before, so this subject was a bit outside my comfort range. I usually paint faces and figures, so it's good to do something else. I guess I could argue that every subject is foreign because you have never painted that particular face or place before anyway.

I found the reference photo for this on flickr with a creative commons license. I loved the yellow light that backlit the horses.

This is quite a large piece - it's a 16x20 on canvas. I had toned the canvas a pinkish color and purposely let a little of it show through in the clouds and the distant mountains.

I soooo wish I had time to paint every day. It's like falling in love - I fall in love with every subject and then in my own way - bring my idea of them to life.